Last weekend we had the pleasure of having a visit with Molly who has just finished her sophomore year at Brown. She hopped on a bus in Providence and we met up in Boston and had a delicious Sunday brunch at Hamersley’s in the South End. It was fun to catch up and hear about all she has been up to and what she has planned for the summer. After brunch we took a walk in Boston Common. It was a short visit, but lovely to have the time together.
Over this past weekend, Aaron and I had the opportunity to watch Justin, Brian and Alice for a night while Amy, Joe, James and Mom went into Boston to watch the Red Sox play the Cubs. Aaron and I had a busy, but fun evening. It was great for us to watch Justin and Brian interact with and play with Alice. Brian in particular was fascinated with Alice. He watched her very closely, brought her toys, gently pet her arms and kept pointing and saying “baby” – very cute. Justin would crouch down on the floor with Alice and talk with her. After all three of them had eaten and been put down to sleep for the night – I’ll admit Aaron and I were a little tired, but also felt appreciative of all the family we have, including 8 fantastic nieces and nephews.
This past weekend, Rita came up for a visit. While she was here we went to an exhibit currently at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: Chihuly – Through the Looking Glass. It’s an exhibit of blown glass. Many of the pieces are huge and very colorful – there were chandelier like pieces hanging from the ceiling, delicate glass bowls inspired by Navajo baskets, spheres of various sizes, pieces that looked like plants, trees, flowers – one piece Millie Fiori (thousand flowers) took up an entire room and was a little like Alice in Wonderland meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Beautiful, unusual, and bizarre. My favorite piece is the one pictured above, Neodymium Reeds on Logs.
A few weeks back most of the family traveled down to Nonnie’s for Easter weekend. Peter and Maria stayed back of course to be with their newborns and Chrissy had to work. We had a nice visit and did a few chores to help get Nonnie prepped for spring. As the youngest in attendance, Alice (pictured above with Nonnie) worked her away around and was in a lot of arms over the weekend. She seems to be a very happy and go with the flow baby. We also played games and colored with Justin and chased Brian, who is remarkably fast on is feet. Click on the photo above to see the album of photos from the weekend.
In mid-April Aaron and I traveled to Niagara Falls (for the first time) to meet up with some friends at an annual board-gaming convention: The Gathering. It was still a bit cold in Niagara Falls and the weather was fairly gray, but we did venture out to see the falls, both from the American side and Canadian side. We also obviously played games and spent time with Bonney, Patrick and their 10-month old son Rowan. It’s clear the area has not fared well through the recent economic downturn – there we lots of empty store fronts and closed businesses. It was a bit sad to see the area depressed. We are hoping that some of it can be attributed to the fact that it was still the “off season” – but we did our best to invest a bit locally – with a little research we found some great restaurants and did some remarkably good eating. The above photo is of Bonney and Aaron on the Canadian side of the falls. It wasn’t raining, the falls just kicked up an incredible amount of mist. Click on their photo to see our other pictures from the trip.
